Another night of carnage for commodities as it was coppers’ turn for the firing squad …limit down yesterday in Shanghai and then 8% off in London and US before a small rally to close down 4.5%…BHP and RIO were trashed in London overnight so expect that to spill over but at least we saw the oil price rally briefly at least off its five year low…there is so much doom and gloom about the oil price and it being sub $40 and falling …but usually when the bearishness reaches this sort of crescendo it’s a sign that everyone who wants to be short is short and there are no more sellers left!!So any slightly positive news is a reason for sharp rallies..maybe oil is starting to find a bottom..just maybe…

My call for an attempt at a rally yesterday nearly came off as we opened weaker then rallied back before there were towels being chucked in everywhere…think the news from China on more commodity falls was the culprit….anyway today we may see some buying of oil stocks and golds…but copper stocks likely to suffer…BHP looks like it will fall to below $25 in the coming weeks as the horror combo of Iron Ore,Oil and Copper hits them hard…almost feel sorry for Andrew McKenzie…I continue to find it incomprehensible that big miners do not hedge their prices they receive…why would you invest all that money and spend all that time developing a mine then have no control over the price you get for it!!!At least with Iron Ore they could cut back production…but hell no..keep digging!!!

I think we will continue to see the market under pressure until we start to get the results through in Feb….Santa only comes at Xmas…

Idea of the Day

Telstra at a 13 year high…good sale at $2.80 from the Future Fund..or more accurately the Civil Service pension fund….

Meanwhile in the Oil War the US pumped a massive 9.2mm barrels a day highest on record…well since ‘83 and the records began…whilst the rig count is falling in a heap…with Shale oil you have to keep drilling holes as the oil flow runs down pretty quickly but the producing wells are pumping as fast as they can to try to service the debt cos once they start flowing the cost is minimal..it’s just drilling the new wells that is being put on hold..so pretty soon the producing wells will slow and with no new wells production(and cash) will start to dry up pretty quickly…when that happens there is going to be a lot of damage and pain in the industry…it is coming…meanwhile in Saudi Arabia they just keep pumping, their cost of production is pretty stable and they just keep pumping until the US oils are out of the game…its lovely having an ally like Saudi!!A stalwart against Muslim extremism …where a blogger gets sentenced to 1000 lashes…don’t get me started…but interestingly the main man King Abdullah is pretty sick and he is 90 odd…in the shade…there is going to be a changing of the guard on Saudi soon and when that happens who knows what the new man will do..it will be a man..women can’t even drive there!!

Is this a sign that times are good in the US and the UK…lottery ticket sales have slumped!!!Maybe because everything is so good there that people don’t need the hope of a huge win…or maybe the disposable income slowing is to blame…so could be a sign of good times or bad ahead?

The UK National Lottery has had its worst six months of sales since its launch in 1994, operator Camelot reported today.Revenue from the various Lottery games slumped to almost £2.3 billion in the period to September 28, down 5.2% on the same time last year.In the US down nearly 20% in FY14 from FY13…

Key employment data will be released at 11.30am today. Forecasts are for 5000 new jobs, and lower than the 42.7k gain last month, with the unemployment rate estimated to hold at 6.35%.

Bitcons…who would have thought it…the price has been crashing..under $250…looking more and more like a giant bitcon to me…crytocurrencies…really…the Silk Road trial is coming up which may be a reason but a hacking attack on a bitcon exchange doesn’t help either…

Big jump in Harvey Norman yesterday as Gerry said he was pretty happy with the one week over Xmas for sales…this is after the stock had run hard and been queried with a ‘Pauline or Please Explain’ from the ASX..

Advisers for the potential $3 billion MYOB float will start introducing the accounting software provider to fund managers next week, ahead of what will likely be one of the biggest initial public offerings of the year.